Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

On Teachings and Teachers

With Martin Aylward recorded on March 17, 2018.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

People often ask about the importance (or not) of working closely with a teacher. One can benefit greatly from general meditation instruction, but personalised guidance from someone who knows you and your practice well can be deeply helpful.

In this session, Martin speaks about approaching teachers for guidance and about the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship; the promise, the potency, and the possible perils and pitfalls.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of 26 January, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Tender Edge of Awareness: Befriending the Unwanted Within

    We all encounter emotions we’d rather not admit to ourselves and others. Self-righteousness, rage, ill will, revenge, vanity or greed are just a few of the dynamics the Buddha encouraged us to have a good eye on. In the upcoming week, we will practice how to meet such dynamics with the necessary clarity rather than self-judgement or denial.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • The Whole of the Holy Life: Celebrating Buddhist Community on Māgha Pūjā 2567

    This weekend is the Buddhist full moon ritual known as Māgha Pūjā, one of the three great festival days in the Theravāda Buddhist calendar, also known as “Saṅgha Day,” celebrating the spiritual community. The tradition remembers a day when the first 1,250 arahant (fully awakened) disciples all spontaneously returned from their travels and came together with the…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of 13 October, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Ulla Koenig guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these gatherings enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Metta in Action

    To be met with metta is to be received with basic respect and a sense of intrinsic worth-simply because we exist. It’s not something we earn or measure; it’s a fundamental recognition of our being. This week, we explore how to extend such warmth toward ourselves. And we’ll look at how metta supports accountability, nurtures integrity, and helps us respond to criticism with clarity and compassion-opening the door to deeper self-understanding and genuine growth.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • The Harvest of Goodness

    The harvest is a beautiful and important part of life each year. A time when our good work bears fruit and people are fed. A time of thanksgiving and prayers. How do we participate in the harvest with our spiritual practice? In this Sunday Sangha session with Drs Larry Ward and Peggy Rowe Ward, we…

    Read More

  • Juha Penttilä

    Exploring Vastness of Awareness Practice

    In this session we’ll explore opening to the practices of vastness of awareness. Through listening and sensing we will open up to a sense of spaciousness and explore letting go within it.

    Read More

  • Ralph Steele

    The Elephant’s Footprint

    Looking at The Four Noble Truths as the way to give us guidance in our world and how to work with racial separation in our Global Dharma sanghas. Is having teachers of Color and Dharma community racial sensitivity training the right way or wrong way and is that enough?

    Read More

  • Living the Bodhisattva Vow

    In Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is one who, having realized deep insight into the nature of self and reality, dedicates their life to alleviating suffering and guiding others toward awakening. Through examining the foundational principles of the vow of the Bodhisattva, we will consider what it means to be “Bodhisattvas in training” and how this intention…

    Read More